Death of Innocence
by Inkfire
Summary: It was the night that took away the last shreds of his innocence. He was to kill a man. Film version of Dumbledore's murder scene in Into the Dark, yet can stand alone.
1. Welcome in hell

**So here is the film version of Into The Dark's murder scene! Enjoy!**

**For people who haven't read ITD – first, do it! Lol. Kidding – that part can stand alone really, I think. It covers the whole murder scene, from the Death Eaters' arrival – here – to Draco's escape from the tower. If you want Draco's punishment, you'll have to go to the main fic (cackles). **

**I don't think the Order is in the castle in the movie, yet it fitted with my version...don't kill me for that little stretching of canon, please...**

**Enjoy! **

He stepped back, his breathing erratic, and waited for a few seconds, before the dark, thick fog of Apparition sneaked under the Cabinet's door. Instinctively, he turned back and rushed away as fast as possible.

As he stood in front of the door again, he eventually realized how childish his behaviour was, how obvious his fear had become. He turned slowly on his heels, his back pressing against the wooden door. He heard quick, hasty footsteps, and his aunt was in front of him.

Her eyes took in his frightened face for a tenth of a second before she grabbed his arm, pulling him towards her.

"Get a grip," she hissed in his ear, "They mustn't see your fear. Come on, you can't fail now."

She released him and turned round right before the others joined them. Unlike her, they all wore their masks. Draco couldn't tell whether he preferred it when their faces were hidden, or whether the cruel-looking masks scared him too much, almost making him forget that there were humans under. Anyway, Bellatrix almost never wore her mask; she didn't need it, everyone already knew who she was, and her expressive face terrified the victims and encouraged her fellow Death Eaters, never leaving anyone indifferent. Right then, her intense eyes drew him in and made him cringe inside at the very same time. He was a little of both, the hunter and the prey. Yet he didn't feel terrified anymore; he felt dizzy and light-headed, as if her hypnotic gaze had dazzled his brain.

"You shall need a Disillusionment Charm," he said, his own voice sounding weird and foreign to himself, as if it was someone else speaking with his lips, another tongue forming the crucial words. "The Order is out there."

The Death Eaters started cursing and talking all at once. Draco felt cold, he couldn't think properly, couldn't react.

"Is Dumbledore here?" Bellatrix asked vividly.

He shook his head no.

"Do you know where he'll arrive?"

"The Astronomy Tower," he whispered.

There was a very short silence.

"We can't all be concealed," his aunt thought aloud, "We'll have to fight before we get to him, anyway. Get to the tower under a Disillusionment Charm and wait for him, we'll be there a little after, just in case."

But they both knew that the _just in case_ was more important than she made it sound. Or was she actually more confident than he? He doubted it, he couldn't see how she could trust him now. However, he nodded without any comment. The others' stares were focused on his face, expectant and greedy and contemptuous and mocking; _Lucius' son is weak, his family really did lose its honour_, he could almost hear them thinking. Gritting his teeth, he turned brutally and strode from the room. Only when his aunt gripped his sleeve, hissing something that awfully sounded like a low stream of curse words, did he realize that he had been about to walk out unconcealed. He performed the curse quickly before fleeing from his cackling fellows in darkness.

The terror was back then, vitually tearing his insides apart. He went straight to the tower, never stopping, never looking back, even when bangs and screams started to echo in his path. Trying very hard not to throw up, not to pass out. _Be a man, Draco,_ he scolded himself mentally. Even his inside voice sounded feeble and weak.

And then he heard them, the voices: Dumbledore was there. He ran, and there he was, in front of him, the old man. His wand nowhere to be seen, helpless in front of him.


	2. Time to kill

**Thanks to Hannah, Sarah, Elo and The Darkest Wizard for their reviews. **

**A huge thank-you to xX Starlight-Moon Xx, without whom this part would never have been written to begin with, since she had the niceness and patience to send me the whole dialogue from the movie. Check out her fics, they're awesome...**

He couldn't. He couldn't bring himself to do it. Helpless. The Headmaster was helpless, and he...he had a wand in his hand, directed straight to his heart. Two little, lethal words, practised again and again for months, and it would be over. Yet there was a huge lump in his throat, and he felt lost, speechless, at the brink of tears.

"Good evening, Draco. What brings you here, on this fine spring evening?"

"Who else is here?" he barked, "I heard you talking!"

"I often talk out loud to myself, I find it extraordinarily useful," the old man replied casually. Relaxed, calm, completely fearless - _I hate him, I hate him so much – _"Have you been whispering to yourself, Draco?"

His inner voice was yelling. _Strike_ - _kill_ - _do it –_ was this his voice, or hers?

"Draco, you are no assassin."

"How do you know what I am?" he cried, "I've done things that would shock you!"

"Like cursing Katie Bell and hoping in return she'd bear a cursed necklace to me?" Dumbledore asked, his voice a little colder, "Like replacing a bottle of mead with one laced with poison? Forgive me, Draco, but I cannot help feeling these actions are so weak that your heart cannot really have been in them."

How did he knew? What did he think? _This is my duty_...

"He trusts me! I was chosen!" In a violent move of despair, Draco pushed his sleeve up. The Dark Mark was there, black against his skin.

Dumbledore's expression did not change.  
"I shall make it easy for you," the old man said softly, and he raised both hands slowly. There it was, his wand.

"_Expelliarmus!_" he shouted as loud as he could, and the wand flew out of Dumbledore's hand, colliding with something somewhere with a sharp noise.

"Very good," the Headmaster whispered, "Very good." The man was mad. And he was, too. His hand trembling so violently that his wand could have fallen too, his face contorted in an ugly snarl he couldn't control.

What was left that he could control?

A door slammed somewhere. Someone was coming. He couldn't think, or wish anymore.

"You are not alone," Dumbledore said. He had spoken matter-of-factly, but somehow Draco knew that this has shocked him, while nothing else had. "There are others." And he, Draco, now that the old man had seemed to react at last, he was more terrified than ever, as if realizing for the first time what all of this truly meant, and he shivered violently.

"How?"

His lips moved as if by their own free will.

"The Vanishing Cabinet in the Room of Requirement," he hissed, "I've been mending it."

He sounded in pain. But he was in pain. The old man had taken a step forward, and he, who held the wand, wanted to step back, yet he held his ground.

"Let me guess... it has a sister. A twin." Dumbledore's voice was no higher than a breath.  
"In Borgin and Burkes. They form a passage."

"That's genius!"

This moment was out of time, as Draco stood frozen, gazing in the Headmaster's blue eyes.

"Draco." Dumbledore's voice was louder again, it sounded soft and sad. "Years ago, I knew a boy who made all the wrong choices. Please let me help you."

"I don't want your help!" he squealed, "Don't you understand? I have to do this. I have to kill you. Or he's gonna kill me."

On the brink of tears. His wand trembling in his hand, ready to lower. His fate written somewhere, and he had no hold on it. Helpless - and he gazed into the eyes of wisdom.

As footsteps came closer and closer.

Until his fate burst into the room.


	3. Out of the pack

**Thanks to Elo, Hannah, Caitlin and The Darkest Wizard for their reviews. **

**Last chapter of the film version! Enjoy! **

Dumbledore looked at them, whereas he couldn't bring himself to. But he heard the voice that sounded a hell of a lot like the one that had been screaming in his mind all night.

"Well. Look what we have here."

Bellatrix slowly came up behind him. "Well done, Draco," she breathed, very close to his ear, and kissed the back of his neck.

Her touch - though it wasn't directly on his skin - felt like a burning. _If she knew_... But what was left to know? His fate was closing in on him, ready to crush him.

She walked around him slowly, her eyes focused on Dumbledore, with a sharp intake of breath as he addressed her.

"Good evening, Bellatrix." His voice was so calm - how could he be so calm? "I think introductions are in order, don't you?"

"Love to Albus," his aunt purred, "But I'm afraid we're on a bit of a tight schedule."

He was still standing at the same spot, his wand extended, and she whirled around to face him, her black, shining eyes meeting his for the very first time. "Do it!" she hissed.  
A low voice came from his right: "Doesn't have the stomach, just like his father. Let me finish him in my own way..." Draco glanced at Fenrir Greyback's eager face.

"No!" Bellatrix shrieked, "The Dark Lord was clear - the boy's to do it!" There was no more enthusiasm and joy in her voice, but a sharp edginess - was it a bit of anguish?

"This is your moment," she breathed now, so low that he could hardly hear her at all. "Do it."

_I can't_, he wanted to scream.

"Go on, Draco," she said, her voice raising, more and more hysterical with every word, shrill with fear and the familiar, bitter feeling of a betrayal she didn't expect. "_NOW!_"

His hand wobbled, his face contorting - he wanted to cry, to yell, to run –

"No."

Jumping at the sound of the cold, firm voice, he whirled round, turning his back on Dumbledore to face Severus Snape.

He stepped aside, his heart beating hard in his chest with something that was neither relief nor terror. Snape walked quietly forward to the place Draco had just left.

"Severus," Dumbledore said – his voice was almost like a sigh – "Please."

And the words came:

"_Avada Kedavra_."

There they were. Sounding so easy, so quick. Dumbledore toppled, collapsing down the Tower into the unknown, and the first sob tore through Draco's chest, but it was very low and stayed unheard; the Death Eaters were suddenly in motion, Bellatrix's scream of triumph as she blasted the Dark Mark into the sky pierced his ears, and Snape grabbed him by the shoulder, pushing him towards the door.  
They hurried down the stairs, on to the familiar corridors of the old castle, on and on, heading out quickly, deadly shadows in the night; Snape was walking first, the others following in a loose grouping, and he was in the middle, walking as if through a haze, barely awake, his mind stirring under the terror that wasn't sharp or torturous anymore, but numbing. Fenrir Greyback was striding quite close by, and he knew that Bellatrix was at the end of the group, having stayed longest under the Dark Mark's morbid glow, now hurrying behind them. Had he turned around, he would have seen her glinting eyes and pale face, maybe flushed by the excitement of the kill, he could have said something – what? _Understand? Forgive me? I'm sorry? I'm not like you? _What was left to be said, and what would she have answered? But he was too afraid to turn, to look back and face his aunt and mentor. Maybe too cowardly.

Surely for the last time he saw the Great Hall, and he heard behind him sharp noises of broken glass, of chaos; his aunt was having her fun. The others strode out, but he stopped, he turned at last; it wasn't for her though, he faced this huge room he had lived six years in, he saw her in the middle of the chaos, and he saw his broken innocence; for the first time, he felt tears on his cheeks. She was stepping on his past; but he had stepped on his future. Their eyes met in the glow of the candles, before they were extinguished. Time to run.

And so they ran, into the Forest, like a pack of unleashed wolves; he hurried, twisting his ankles, and his aunt overtook him, stumbling and waving her arms to keep her balance. They soon reached the limits of the park.

He had tuned out the sounds of their run, the other Death Eaters' panting, Bella's jeers and calls to the stupid half-giant - she seemed determined to enjoy herself thoroughly in this night of chaos and death – but he couldn't help but hear Potter's furious screams. He stopped, he turned; but then the sound of the blazed hut made him whirl around again, he didn't know where to go, what was right anymore, if there had ever been a right path, and Snape barked "Run!".

He ran. Alone.


End file.
